Poemunity — your poem community

for Lewis Ellingham The laughing soldiers fought to their defeat . . . James Fenton, “In a Notebook” White decorators interested in Art, Black file clerks with theatrical ambitions, kids making pharmaceutical revisions in journals Comp. instructors urged they start, the part-Cherokee teenage genius (maybe), the secretary who hung out with fairies, the copywriter wanting to know, where is my husband? the soprano with the baby, all drank draft beer or lethal sweet Manhattans or improvised concoctions with tequila in summer when, from Third Street, we could feel a night breeze waft in whose fragrances were Latin. The place was run by Polish refugees: squat Margie, gaunt Speedy (whose sobriquet transliterated what?). He’d brought his play from Łódź. After a while, we guessed Margie’s illiteracy was why he cashed checks and she perched near the threshold to ban pros, the underage, the fugitive, and those arrayed impertinently to their sex. The bar was talk and cruising; in the back room, we danced: Martha and the Vandellas, Smokey and the Miracles, while sellers and buyers changed crisp tens for smoke and smack. Some came in after work, some after supper, plumage replenished to meet who knew who. Behind the bar, Margie dished up beef stew. On weeknights, you could always find an upper to speed you to your desk, and drink till four. Loosened by booze, we drifted, on the ripples of Motown, home in new couples, or triples, were back at dusk, with IDs, at the door. Bill was my roommate, Russell drank with me, although they were a dozen years my seniors. I walked off with the eighteen-year-old genius —an Older Woman, barely twenty-three. Link was new as Rimbaud, and better looking, North Beach bar paideon of doomed Jack Spicer, like Russell, our two-meter artificer, a Corvo whose ecclesia was cooking. Bill and Russell were painters. Bill had been a monk in Kyoto. Stoned, we sketched together, till he discovered poppers and black leather and Zen consented to new discipline. We shared my Sixth Street flat with a morose cat, an arch cat, and pot plants we pruned daily. His boyfriend had left him for an Israeli dancer; my husband was on Mykonos. Russell loved Harold, who was Black and bad, and lavished on him dinners “meant for men” like Escoffier and Brillat-Savarin. Staunch blond Dora made rice. When she had tucked in the twins, six flights of tenement stairs they’d descend, elevenish, and stroll down Third Street, desultory night patrol gone mauve and green under the virulent streetlights, to the bar, where Bill and I (if we’d not come to dinner), Link, and Lew, and Betty had already had a few. One sweat-soaked night in pitiless July, wedged on booth benches of cracked Naugahyde, we planned a literary magazine where North Beach met the Lower East Side Scene. We could have titled it When Worlds Collide. Dora was gone, “In case the children wake up.” Link lightly had decamped with someone else (the German engineer? Or was he Bill’s?). Russell’s stooped vale brushed my absent makeup. Armed children spared us home, our good-night hugs laissez-passer. We railed against the war. Soon, some of us bused south with SNCC and CORE. Soon, some of us got busted dealing drugs. The file clerks took exams and forged ahead. The decorators’ kitchens blazed persimmon. The secretary started kissing women, and so did I, and my three friends are dead.

Heaven was originally precisely that: the starry sky, dating back to the earliest Egyptian texts, which include magic spells that enable the soul to be sewn in the body of the great mother, Nut, literally "night," like the seed of a plant, which is also a jewel and a star. The Greek Elysian fields derive from the same celestial topography: the Egyptian "Field of Rushes," the eastern stars at dawn where the soul goes to be purified. That there is another, mirror world, a world of light, and that this world is simply the sky—and a step further, the breath of the sky, the weather, the very air—is a formative belief of great antiquity that has continued to the present day with the godhead becoming brightness itself: dios/theos (Greek); deus/divine/diana (Latin); devas (Sanskrit); daha (Arabic); day (English). —Susan Brind Morrow, Wolves and Honey 1 Gravel paths on hillsides amid moon-drawn vineyards, click of pearls upon a polished nightstand soft as rainwater, self-minded stars, oboe music distant as the grinding of icebergs against the hull of the self and the soul in the darkness chanting to the ecstatic chance of existence. Deep is the water and long is the moonlight inscribing addresses in quicksilver ink, building the staircase a lover forever pauses upon. Deep is the darkness and long is the night, solid the water and liquid the light. How strange that they arrive at all, nights on planet earth. 2 Sometimes, not often but repeatedly, the past invades my dreams in the form of a familiar neighborhood I can no longer locate, a warren of streets lined with dark cafés and unforgettable bars, a place where I can sing by heart every song on every jukebox, a city that feels the way the skin of an octopus looks pulse-changing from color to color, laminar and fluid and electric, a city of shadow-draped churches, of busses on dim avenues, or riverlights, or canyonlands, but always a city, and wonderful, and lost. Sometimes it resembles Amsterdam, students from the ballet school like fanciful gazelles shooting pool in pink tights and soft, shapeless sweaters, or Madrid at 4AM, arguing the 18th Brumaire with angry Marxists, or Manhattan when the snowfall crowns every trash-can king of its Bowery stoop, or Chicago, or Dublin, or some ideal city of the imagination, as in a movie you can neither remember entirely nor completely forget, barracuda-faced men drinking sake like yakuza in a Harukami novel, women sipping champagne or arrack, the rattle of beaded curtains in the back, the necklaces of Christmas lights reflected in raindrops on windows, the taste of peanuts and their shells crushed to powder underfoot, always real, always elusive, always a city, and wonderful, and lost. All night I wander alone, searching in vain for the irretrievable. 3 In the night I will drink from a cup of ashes and yellow paint. In the night I will gossip with the clouds and grow strong. In the night I will cross rooftops to watch the sea tremble in a dream. In the night I will assemble my army of golden carpenter ants. In the night I will walk the towpath among satellites and cosmic dust. In the night I will cry to the roots of potted plants in empty offices. In the night I will gather the feathers of pigeons in a honey jar. In the night I will become an infant before your flag.

When i blow open green bottles straight across hump of a frozen tongue when i shove brown glass through skull of a possum and pass from my ears a baptism of red piss when i cry from my butt like a jackal and throw limbs of a dying mule into the river when i spit venom from the head burn codeine into a cosmetic paste and grieve into a wax of dried bulls when my mystical bunions jam eyes into searching spit of a starving wolf into cosmic lips like monkey genitals And i receive my pickled turned skeleton of rusty chains in the bodega i receive a symbolic heart made of five middle fingers in the bodega i receive a teeth parade of yellow roses to leave the bodega and cross the rio grande onto the flatbead bones of a musty nighttrain I say to see me loosen jaws like a snake to see me exhausted after a few strikes to see me pay dirt to the ice hog in my masai-pachuca-doo squatting on a pillow of old zoot suits squatting among the names and breeds breaking down cheeks dotted on this night train and i say i dream of the 1943 riots I say i dream in a hailstorm of riots And i say riots dream into a mass of skins stooping on flatbed bones of a funky nighttrain And when i siphon sweat for fuel from this patron saint of chronic diarrhea When i turn this rubber face into a spotted puma and take on the forceful winds of the prune pickers When my laughter dominates the last seat And i burn labor contracts into brown port caca Then I approach in mother of pearl and human blood in father of smoking and coughing throats and in my jelly of coyote strings who is to say what when i approach I mean somewhere along the road in this cold cold chicken shit somewhere along the road in this wasted body somewhere along the road eat stocks, bonds feathers somewhere along the road confiscate borders from wild dogs somewhere along the road shove them into the imperial valley somewhere along the road cry hard and let this night train sink its rundown rectum of electric chairs into heaven and say fuck it I see a way through the maroon glass of this milky way I say i see a way through for the cradle of hulls sticking through these indigo ankles I see a way through for these torn shoes stinking like dead cats I see a way through for these blood-streaked legs I say i see a way through for these pus-riddled holes in their suction-cup lips and when i pass through toothless combs coming from armpits of the bodega when i pass through bats on corkscrews coming from the bodega when i push my mortified flesh from this bodega and walk with the mildew of an old zoot suit walk tall in my mud-packed-masai-pachuca-doo walk among the survivors from the musty nighttrains fuck it I say dreams are like riots i say we dream in a hailstorm of riots and I say riots dream into a mass of skins coming from flatbed bones of the funky funky nighttrains

After Heinrich I. F. Biber I What’s unseen may not exist— Or so those secret powers insist That prowl past nightfall, Enabled by the brain’s blacklist To fester out of sight, So we streak from bad to worse, Through an expanding universe And see no evil. On my rounds like a night nurse Or sentry on qui vive, I make, through murkier hours, my way Where the sun patrolled all day Toward stone-blind midnight To poke this flickering flashlamp’s ray At what’s hushed up and hidden. Lacking all leave or protocol, Things, one by one, hear my footfall, Blank out their faces, Dodge between trees, find cracks in walls Or lock down offices. Still, though scuttling forces flee Just as far stars recede from me To outmost boundaries, I stalk through ruins and debris, Graveyard and underground. Led by their helmetlantern’s light Miners inch through anthracite; I’m the unblinking mole That sniffs out what gets lost or might Slip down the world’s black hole. II (ending his rounds, the watchman, somewhat tipsy, returns) What’s obscene?—just our obsessed, Incessant itch and interest In things found frightful: In bestial tortures, rape, incest; In ripe forbidden fruit Dangling, lush, just out of reach; Dim cellars nailed up under each Towering success, The loser’s envy that will teach A fierce vindictiveness, The victors’ high court that insures Pardon for winners and procures Little that’s needed But all we lust for. What endures?— Exponential greed And trash containers overflowing With shredded memos, records showing What, who, when, why ’Til there’s no sure way of knowing What’s clear to every eye: The heart’s delight in hatred, runny As the gold drip from combs of honey; The rectal intercourse Of power politics and money That slimes both goal and source. What’s obscured?—what’s abscessed. After inspection, I’d suggest It’s time we got our head Rewired. I plan to just get pissed, Shitfaced and brain-dead.

Under a heavy wire milk case, A piece of concrete foundation On top, in summer, in her backyard, Mrs. Russo keeps the cat Nikita safe From birds, from dogs, from eating Johnson grass, which he throws up. Nikita waits for ants to wander in And for the sun to leave. Instead, she comes to keep him Company, saying You look fat And that her son died, Remember I told you? Walking thin in his uniform On a road.

childhood remembrances are always a drag if you’re Black you always remember things like living in Woodlawn with no inside toilet and if you become famous or something they never talk about how happy you were to have your mother all to yourself and how good the water felt when you got your bath from one of those big tubs that folk in chicago barbecue in and somehow when you talk about home it never gets across how much you understood their feelings as the whole family attended meetings about Hollydale and even though you remember your biographers never understand your father’s pain as he sells his stock and another dream goes And though you’re poor it isn’t poverty that concerns you and though they fought a lot it isn’t your father’s drinking that makes any difference but only that everybody is together and you and your sister have happy birthdays and very good Christmases and I really hope no white person ever has cause to write about me because they never understand Black love is Black wealth and they’ll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy

(Too sound of mind) The paper table cloth was tastefully bleak, The misty morning light shone on his cheek, And made him look alone and masculine. He talked of Seneca and bad translations, Of modern critics' lightweight observations; A bread crumb rested sweetly on his chin. Behind him, through the glass, the ocean's heave Uncurled against the sand, beside his sleeve, As Eros aimed his toxic javelin. I ducked out of the way, to no avail; It glanced my flesh, injecting quite a cocktail That blurred my sight and caused my head to spin— Never mind the coffee we were drinking, Whatever I said was not what I was thinking. I wanted to become his mandolin, And lie across his lap, a dainty lute, And sing to him and feed him ripened fruit, While light upon the sea turned opaline. Instead, this conversation about art And formal education—God, he's smart! Such rationality should be a sin. The hour was up, he had to run, of course; A handshake and a peck of shy remorse— Outside, the sea was gray and dull as tin; It ruled the shore with tedious discipline.

Your body, hard vowels In a soft dress, is still. What you can't know is that after you died All the black poets In New York City Took a deep breath, And breathed you out; Dark corners of small clubs, The silence you left twitching On the floors of the gigs You turned your back on, The balled-up fists of notes Flung, angry from a keyboard. You won't be able to hear us Try to etch what rose Off your eyes, from your throat. Out you bleed, not as sweet, or sweaty, Through our dark fingertips. We drum rest We drum thank you We drum stay .

To Reg 1season opener The ants are licking open the peonies unwrapping the seal to the tight globes of bloom    they gang up on and chase away a ladybug I can sit here    on the porch stoop as on the step    of an amphitheater and watch    ours is a great sports city the tour guides say   even the house roofs are bleachers    some ball is always in the air ready to open    its colors fragrance like stadium food scent reaches the street    our mouths drop open    tongues about to do the work 2 The wind is so high, the lake surface contracts in a gasp The waves jump straight up. Our side must be winning. I can't hear the crowd of whitecap I see from the bus run The joggers and cyclists look as though hysterically they carry, themselves,     the news and breaking sound        that maybe There's not another side to water        nor to the whole of what we play We field against a fog, or, the home game in solids, ice in a change of uniform We contend against what is and is ourselves        though We want a side that isn't ours to have of the universe    to have us on our feet like the waves cheering on this morning this morning We want our messengers to lie    a pool of good news dead silent at our feet for us to walk open.    Our winnings winning or not: still won a life that lets us live it the excitement    of winged ankles, seas of dancing streets in the envelope. 3 When the waves jumped straight up, the messenger Sand smashed them to pieces for winning When the surface fainted back, the stampeding Sky sank its foot in that face to leave winning There were two countless words for the score You hear the roar of silence over winning Someone screaming, What are you doing, what are you Doing    Something answers, I am winning. Doing nothing is thrown out the window To eliminate that way to deal with winning We burned gridlocked cars in Morse code before We took off running to say living is winning Lake Shore Drive reads Chicago is 'living life city' (quoting the song)          winning. 4 The whole street     ladies lay afloat in the gondola stroll     of their own legs the daylit lanterns of their dreams hide inexpressibly their faces made up with not being in Kansas they fan with maps like feathers of brightly colored directions to famous brands of which this street is that one direction.     And all one direction only—         no movement. as if, since people move, there are no people on this street; the stalks of the buildings, reeds a hem of the lake sweeps through. 5 daylight you see people's reflections off each other fill the street cascading one from another the crowd slips like a fan out of itself, in the angling of store displays the glass facets kaleidoscope a rose window back of themselves full of the flash petals of grace that fall by evening home, when the ones dressed in evening wear        possession-less and so, without reflection here        take all the empties back all the want and people scavenged back off the streets     into these who dine with starving    off the streets 6 The street in the opening between buildings is running a strip of the el like a frame by frame tape, the windows of the train different shots of the sky, then it breaks, and the clouds are caught up in the walls of nearby glass-skin architecture. I never get to see what I think would be the whole movie. I, too, move on. The turns in the drive roll the buildings out from behind one another in a scenery change, only I am the one on wheels, the drop backs a larger stage than this town. And just as I can see betrayal coming by the music, my eyes braille the thunder hidden even up the sleeve of a silent film. The hand shakes anyway. Not meant to be the end of things. An inbound train toward the loop will be arriving shortly. The street in the opening 7 The John Hancock Building has never struck the actual oil it looks like it should. Wildcatters call this a dry hole. But it isn't, it has the pool of Lake Michigan on the bottom when you're looking from the top What an amazing hole, he said. Enchantment's name to call into      what we all are looking for, a spell to an opening as deep     into seeing. He had the gift of new    first time in a city, pick pockets hadn't sighted yet the eyes, the bulging wealth of openness, the shiny change. We were watching the old movie of our century. —our village root, the well's drawn-words drip into volumes in our pack trying to solve our plot. A close-up on the winch-rope, frayed by so continuously raising the question, cuts off    not to mislead the viewer; and screened on our bodies, the billboard buses, city wall— the crude that is this day struck from our drilling 8 All over everything    the sun rises funny. I heard the eagle flies on Friday as the eagle shits on Friday where I lived. Not enough for any growth to get paid its flowers. Mostly weed. Bouquet of distraction. Broken glass season gives way to plastic in the lots, only the packaging changes, it snows something or other year round white to deal with, powder or rock. Or through the window, the country unable to stop opening its poverties, making the sun go 'round to the back. But the sun reserves its someday someday to shine where door don' 'llow light. And I am drenched by a slow, barely brought in gusher of my working through the cracks, a gold opened in myself like a vein through blinding pain, through the names of need and silence. But my someday come seems didn't when the hit is only mine, not also enough of  to my brothers. 9 Dawn burnished wave,        smoothed free of everything but the slowest curve barely less than earth's hump      unloads a surf-less silence we can see— clear bright yet shimmering—stillness as. Stillness as a dangerous surface enough! a floor walked all night clear to the end of nowhere                     got to get my hands on some no place          except where money from somewhere to get me over this hump an arm swipes everything off the table to this floor        the hit bottom come to the surface on the table

Or nothing is really north, but you’re so civic and indivisible. The Folk Revival has no middle, no anachronism, just no more caption or advent, but you’re not them dilettantes.          As relentless as listening to the shore backwards, your words about how it happens, wanderlust and continental, badge verse the nourish of no mercy  crash short, burst slack,   repeat  as you were reallysomething. You know the house is empty, exempt, yours for the mentioning of will to power appears an officer on a horse with more posture than you’re used to, undoing your robe for it’s satin loose before a sash and give him the magician, night minion, answer over the flashlight nothing Authority I admire is kept during itself, kinetic, black market uncorrectable and in between admiring and participating, you wear the tight number which hugs risen the been-there under your eyes vindicates evasion head on    I don’t even imagine what real violation sounds    I stay at the Social Club while you go sell my high back to Cuba China   as a kind of sound of king of sound    He’ll ask me to speak up, come closer, note the kind of trouble I’m in here is absurd and prolific  the kind you catch for witnessing an author rewrite the book   skip the vista, the word vista,  the good word  and look as it’s splitting